Huge competition for graduate jobs has pushed starting salaries down 13pc on
average over the past year, bringing further misery to this year’s degree
cohort, new research reveals.

Graduates who started new jobs this summer received an average salary of £22,800 - a “marked” 13.2pc less than last year, an analysis of graduate salaries at more than 60 recruiters found.

Ann Swain, chief executive of the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCO), which commissioned the study, said: “The slowdown in the professional-recruitment market, combined with the huge number of graduates competing for jobs means that starting salaries have edged downwards markedly this year.”

The survey also shows that permanent job hires fell by 15pc over the past year, as employers increasingly opted to recruit temporary staff as a flexible means of securing labour.

Placements of temporary staff in the UK white-collar jobs market rose by 15pc in the year to September, the survey showed,

APSCO said many UK businesses are turning to temporary workers to kick-start projects that were put on hold during the summer, as many companies scaled back activity due to staff taking time off for holidays and the Olympics.

Elsewhere, a survey by KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation painted a more rosy picture. Permanent placements were beginning to “stabilise” across industries, while temporary hires rose for the second month running, the data showed.

But pay growth remains muted as the number of candidates looking for roles increases, with the economy remaining “fragile”, KPMG said.

Bernard Brown, partner at KPMG, said: “The jobs market cannot be viewed in isolation as any sustainable improvement in employment remains dependent on the growth of the economy as a whole.

“While some parts of the country may be showing signs of recovery, others are lagging behind and until an upward trajectory is seen across the whole of the UK, the jobs market will remain fragile with warnings to ‘handle with care’.”

Meanwhile, a survey of over 1,000 engineers in the UK reveals over half have lost confidence in government policy towards the industry, with a similar number sceptical that companies will continue to invest locally.

The findings, from recruiter Matchtech, reveal three-quarters think not enough is being done to encourage innovation in the UK and two thirds do not feel confident the UK will be a world-leader in engineering in future.